What does this give me, over and above the default manhole capabilities of twistd?

DreamSSH provides, out of the box, the following:

• provides an easy mechanism for creating your own shell
• configurable banner/MOTD
• enable's server admins to templatize their banner (e.g., changing the "help" based on interpreter type)
• provides an easy means of generating server keys (and then uses them automatically)
• by default, it uses a custom directory for checking authorized SSH keys, but can also use $HOME for locating authorized keys
• can import SSH keys from Launchpad.net

And there's more coming:

• shared sessions (multiple uses in a single space)
• user roles
• a status bar (maybe)
• automated sign-up functionality

You can install from PyPI, which will give you the latest released (hopefully stable) version of the software:

$ sudo pip install dreamssh

If you like living on the edge, you can install from the github master branch:

$ sudo pip install https://github.com/dreamhost/dreamssh/zipball/master

Finally, you can just get the code itself:

$ git clone https://github.com/dreamhost/dreamssh.git

Storage in DreamSSH is handled by MongoDB, so you will need to have this software installed on your system. See the following for more information:

• http://docs.mongodb.org/master/installation/

If you used pip to install DreamSSH, then you will have most of the necessary libraries installed. TxMongo doesn't have a PyPI download yet, so you'll need to install it manually:

$ sudo pip install https://github.com/dreamhost/mongo-async-python-driver/zipball/master

If you didn't use pip to install DreamSSH, you will also need to do the following:

$ sudo pip install pyasn1
$ sudo pip install PyCrypto
$ sudo pip install twisted

Once the dependencies are installed, you'll need to generate the keys for use by the server:

$ twistd dreamssh keygen

Once you have DreamSSH installed, interacting with the server is as easy as the following:

$ twistd dreamssh

That will run in daemonized mode. If you'd like to run it in the foreground and watch the log output to stdout, just do:

$ twistd -n dreamssh

To log into the shell, use this command:

$ twistd dreamssh shell

If you'd like to try out the alternate "toy" shell:

$ twistd dreamssh --interpreter=echo

When you're ready to shut it down:

$ twistd dreamssh stop

If you'd like to regenerate the config file for DreamSSH, you can do so with the following command:

$ twistd dreamssh generate-config

The old config will be saved in the ~/.dreamssh directory with a timestamp appended to its filename.

For those who have a clone of the git repo, there are development convenience make targets that mirror the above functionality:

$ make keygen
$ make daemon
$ make run
$ make shell
$ make stop
$ make generate-config

When you log into the Python shell:

$ twistd dreamssh shell

You are greeted with something that looks like this:

:>>
:
: Welcome to
:
:________                              ____________________  __
:___  __ \_________________ _______ _____  ___/_  ___/__  / / /
:__  / / /_  ___/  _ \  __ `/_  __ `__ \____ \_____ \__  /_/ /
:_  /_/ /_  /   /  __/ /_/ /_  / / / / /___/ /____/ /_  __  /
:/_____/ /_/    \___/\__,_/ /_/ /_/ /_//____/ /____/ /_/ /_/
:
:
: You have logged into a DreamSSH Server.
: Type 'ls()' or 'dir()' to see the objects in the current namespace.
:
: Enjoy!
:
:>>

If you follow the hints given in the banner, you can get a listing of available objects with the following command:

:>> ls()
    __builtins__ - data
    app          - dreamssh.shell.pythonshell.CommandAPI.app
    banner       - dreamssh.shell.pythonshell.CommandAPI.banner
    clear        - dreamssh.shell.pythonshell.CommandAPI.clear
    config       - dreamssh.config
    exit         - dreamssh.shell.pythonshell.CommandAPI.exit
    info         - dreamssh.shell.pythonshell.CommandAPI.info
    ls           - dreamssh.shell.pythonshell.CommandAPI.ls
    os           - os
    pprint       - pprint.pprint
    quit         - dreamssh.shell.pythonshell.CommandAPI.quit
    services     - data
    sys          - sys

If you opt for the 'echo' shell:

$ twistd dreamssh --interpreter=echo

Then executing any command will looks something like this:

:>> execute any command
input = execute any command, filename = <console>

The echo shell is intended to provide insight or a starting point for developers who want to implement their own shell their users can ssh into.

TBD

TBD

• added support for roles and restricting commands based on roles
• added support for persistent storage with MongoDB
• added new functions for listing logged-in users, getting user info, etc.

• modular configuration using zope.components
• user ssh keys that don't require a user have an account on the machine where DreamSSH is running
• a script class and make target for importing a user's public keys from Launchpad.net
• a thorough code reorganization
• provide a DreamSSH sdk subpackage for use by other projects

• configurable banner/MOTD
• the ability to templatize your banner (e.g., changing the "help" based on interpreter type)
• it provides an easy means of generating keys (and then uses them automatically)
• by default, uses the local filesystems SSH keys for authenticating users
• provides an easy mechanism for creating your own shell